Skip to main content

Bankstown City Centre Master Plan

This plan aims to have more people living, working, studying, visiting and investing in our largest strategic centre.

The Bankstown City Centre Master Plan was adopted by Council in 2021 and provides a framework for growth and change over the next 15 years and beyond. It aims to have more people living, working, studying, visiting and investing in our largest strategic centre.

Creating a liveable, vibrant, sustainable and accessible place that attracts jobs and investment is central to the Master Plan. Well planned growth will help reinforce Bankstown’s existing qualities. Our streets will be pedestrian friendly and lively in the day and night, contributing to a sense of safety, attractiveness and inclusiveness.

Higher density living and jobs growth will be well located around the future Metro Station, and close to amenities, services and infrastructure. The Master Plan is an innovative framework which will set Bankstown City Centre on a path of becoming a genuine health, academic, research and training precinct.

The Master Plan directly responds to a number of drivers for change, including:

  • Jobs growth, which leverages off key government and institutional investments in transport, education and health.
  • Housing affordability, by providing a range of housing types, and introducing mechanisms for the delivery of affordable housing.
  • A growing population, with diverse needs in terms of housing types and access to infrastructure and services.
  • Demand for sustainability and resilience, improving the environmental performance of the City Centre and managing the impacts of climate change.
  • Directions set out how Council will implement the Master Plan in key areas including infrastructure, design, jobs growth, public places and spaces, transport, sustainability, heritage and culture, housing and governance.
  • Moving better, by creating more people-focused streets and capitalising on Bankstown’s strong rail, future Metro and bus connectivity.

State government’s Transport Oriented Development (TOD) Program

Since Council created the Bankstown City Centre Master Plan, the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure did a review of planning controls across Sydney. The goal of this was to find areas where more housing could be built near key train stations. This is referred to as the NSW Government’s Transport Oriented Development (TOD) Program.  

Bankstown was picked as an accelerated precinct for this project, which meant new planning controls would be fast tracked, due to its proximity to metro stations and key public transport interchanges.

This program changed some of the planning controls in the Bankstown City Centre Master Plan, so Council made a submission to the NSW Government to suggest amendments to ensure sustainable growth for Bankstown.

On 27 November 2024, the proposed TOD changes came into effect and amended the planning controls for the Bankstown to provide:

  • Capacity for 14,000 new homes
  • Capacity for 14,300 new jobs across the precinct
  • New development must provide 3-4% of new residential dwellings as affordable housing to Council to manage or a monetary contribution to Council to invest in affordable housing
  • New open space, with better walkways and cycleways

You can find more information in the final rezoning documents on the NSW Planning Portal.

To support these changes, we also amended the Bankstown City Centre Development Control Plan (DCP). This is a planning document that provides detailed planning and design rules. It applies to all land in the Bankstown City Centre and including new residential and commercial development.